Sequence and Duration in Graphic Novels

chapter 13 Sequence and Duration in Graphic Novels

Ileana da Silva and Marc Wolterbeek

1 Introduction: A Traditional Contemporary Narrative

Sequential art is a term used to identify a broad range of visual narratives, from ancient cave paintings to contemporary graphic novels, and it is distinctive in its combination of temporal and spatial arts – that is, literature and painting.1 The term itself indicates the dual nature of this form: sequence implies narrative, which is diachronic, taking place over time, while pictorial art is syn- chronic, presenting a single frozen image. The “brilliant antithesis” made in Antiquity by Simonides of Ceos – that “painting is mute poetry and poetry a speaking painting”2 – should not be oversimplified, however; Lessing himself was aware that literature is often illustrative and painting can be narrative.3 Because of its nature, sequential art often concerns itself with temporal and spatial dimensions and pays particular attention to two fundamental concepts about time: sequence and duration. These characteristics of time were evident to the earliest philosophers, and “in scholastic authors familiar to Descartes, such as Aquinas and Suarez, duration is simply persistence in being while tem- pus is the measure or numbering of beings that are ‘successive’ or composed of parts existing one after the other.”4 In other words, time “lasts” or “endures” – a task may take an hour to complete – and time can also be divided or numbered into seconds, minutes, and hours (a sequence).5

1 The term “sequential art” was coined by Will Eisner in Comics and Sequential Art: Principles and Practices from the Legendary Cartoonist (New York: Norton, 2008) and it is thoroughly de- fined by Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), 5. 2 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Laocoön: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry (Trans. Edward McCormick. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962), 4. 3 See Lessing, Laocoön, 91: “succession in time is the province of the poet just as space is that of the painter.” 4 Geoffrey Gorham, “Descartes on Time and Duration,” Early Sciences and Modern Medicine 12 (2007): 43. 5 For classic concepts of time, see S. Alexander, S., “Spinoza and Time,” Studies in Spinoza, ed. S. Paul Kashap (Berkeley: University of California, 1974); Christopher Drohan, “A Timely Encounter: Dr. Manhattan and Henry Bergson,” in Mark White, ed. Watchmen and Philosophy: A Rorschach Test. Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series (Hoboken, New Jersey: John

In analyzing the temporal nature of sequential art, it is important to distin- guish different types of time, in particular reading and narrative time. Reading time (including “reading” artwork) tends to be immediate and is determined by microstructural elements, such as the panels and page layouts. Narrative time, including plot, is more complex and consists of several elements, and in many respects resembles the way time functions in conventional literature.6 On a microstructural level sequence is established in this form of art by panels or frames that set off one illustration from another, moving both reading and narrative time in a linear, progressive fashion. Theoretically each panel represents a “snapshot in time,” though even visual elements, such as motion lines, indicate duration. Further, most panels include words, usually set off in text boxes or speech balloons, and hence introduce temporality into the reading process. Other microstructural aspects of sequential art reveal its unique ability to present time and space. As Scott McCloud explains, large panels generally slow down reading time while narrow panels speed it up.7 Other formal dimensions, like the gutters separating panels or page lay-outs, affect reading time. The se- quencing of panels also influences narrative time: panels representing one moment followed by another (called “moment-to-moment panels” by McCloud) not only move the reader’s eyes quickly (like panes of film) but also capture the narrative present. On the macro level narrative time belongs to the main plot of the story, and it may be represented diegetically and mimetically. For example, a story told through the eyes of a first person narrator is often recounted diegetically, as the character describes his or her past to the reader retrospectively, using the past tense. On a microstructural level this narration is often contained within text boxes in sequential art. But a story is also told mimetically, as happening in the here and now, and this rendition occurs on a micro level both visually and verbally, with speech balloons capturing actual present speech. As in conventional literature, the plot of a graphic novel may be analyzed in Aristotelian terms (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and dénouement) that

Wiley and Sons, 2009); and Gideon Yaffe, “Locke on Consciousness, Personal Identity and the Idea of Duration,” Noûs 45, no. 3 (2011). 6 See Gérard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, trans. Jane Lewin (New York: Cornell University Press, 1980), 27, for the distinction of “narrative” from “story” and “narrating”: the term “story” designates “the signified or narrative content”; “narrative” indicates “the signifier, statement, discourse, or narrative text itself”; while “the word narrating” pertains to “the producing narrative action and, by extension, the whole of the real or fictional situation in which the action takes place.” 7 See Scott, Understanding Comics, 101–2.